Sabic and ExxonMobil Ink Deal for Elastomers Venture
Sabic and ExxonMobil Chemical say they have signed a heads of agreement (HOA) for a previously announced elastomers project at the companies’ Al-Jubail Petrochemical Co. (Kemya; Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia) and Saudi Yanbu Petrochemical Co. (Yanpet; Yanbu, Saudi Arabia) joint ventures (CW, March,
10, p. 9). The agreement was signed by Mansour Al Kharboush, v.p./spe-cialty products at Sabic and Robert G. Hutchinson, v.p./chemicals at Exxon Mobil Saudi Arabia. The elastomers plants will utilize additional feedstock allocated by the Ministry of Petroleum & Mineral
Resources (Riyadh) and additional feedstock supplied from other sources in Saudi Arabia, Sabic says. Signing up: Robert G. Hutchinson (l.) and Mansour Al Kharboush (r.) agree on multibillion-dollar project.
The multibillion-dollar project includes plants producing 400,000 m.t./year of carbon black, as well as rubber and thermoplastic specialty polymers including ethylene propylene diene monomer, thermoplastic olefins, butyl rubber, styrene butadiene rubber, and polybutadiene rubber. They will supply emerging local and international markets. A final decision on the project is subject to completion of further detailed studies to assess its economic feasibility. The project is also subject to board approval from both jv’s. Sabic and ExxonMobil are working to define the project’s scope, technologies, and marketing, as well as its feedstock requirements.
The investment is aligned with Saudi Arabia’s national industrial cluster development program, which aims to accelerate growth and diversification of the country’s manufacturing sector including the automotive industry. The program is promoted by the Saudi government and aims to leverage the country’s natural and human resources. The focus in the automotive sector is on vehicle assembly, vehicle component manufacture, tire manufacture, and advanced composites development.
Yanpet is a 50-50 partnership between Sabic and Mobil Yanbu Petrochemical Co., an affiliate of ExxonMobil Chemical. It produces more than 1. 6 million m.t./year of ethylene and more than 2 million m.t./year of derivatives including ethylene glycol, high-density polyethylene, and polypropylene. Kemya, onstream since 1984, is owned 50-50 by Sabic and Exxon Chemical Arabia, also an affiliate of ExxonMobil Chemical. Its products include linear low-density polyethylene and low-density polyethylene. —NATASHA ALPEROWICZ
ect. Construction is due to start in 2010, he says. Further details were not disclosed.
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Toyo-Thai Corp. says it has received a contract
for engineering, procurement, and construc-
tion management for a previously announced
hydrogen peroxide (H O ) complex that will
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be built at Map Ta Phut, Thailand by MTP
HP JV Thailand, a joint venture between Dow
Chemical and Solvay (CW June 9/16, p. 24).
The 330,000-m.t./year plant, the world’s larg-
est H O unit, will form part of a hydrogen
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peroxide-propylene oxide jv planned by Dow
and Siam Cement. The propylene oxide plant,
based on a novel process developed by BASF
and Dow, will be designed to produce 390,000
m.t./year. Completion is scheduled in 2011.
SP Chemicals Shelves Chinese Styrene Plant SP Chemicals (Singapore) says it will delay by “at least two years” construction of a previously announced styrene monomer project at its Taixing, China complex due to unfavorable markets and the global financial crisis. SP Chemicals was due to start construction of the 320,000-m.t./year styrene plant in the third quarter of this year with completion originally scheduled for the first quarter of 2010.
Tasnee Petrochemicals (Riyadh), a private sector company, says it is at a very early conceptual development phase for a petrochemical complex, which would be built downstream from a planned private-sector, export-oriented oil refinery at Jizan, Saudi Arabia. The Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources (Riyadh), the project’s promoter, invited proposals earlier this year to build, own, and operate the refinery, and it has pre-qualified eight local and regional private-sector groups. A number of international oil companies are also expected to submit proposals. The project will include a 400,000-bbl/day refinery and a possible petchem or power generation plant. The pre-qualified companies, in addition to Tasnee, are Advanced Refining and Petrochemical Co., A.K. Al Bakri and Sons Holding (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia), Arabian
Peninsula Co., Nama Chemicals (Dammam, Saudi Arabia), Obeikan Investment Group, Taqat (Kuwait City), and Arabian Co. for Water and Power Development. The successful candidate will be selected by the end of the second quarter of 2009. The project could involve the construction of a 1.5-million m.t./ year naphtha cracker and derivative units by 2014.
Formosa Plastics Receives Approval for Plant in Vietnam The government of Vietnam has approved Formosa Plastics’ plans to invest up to $15 billion to develop a petrochemical complex in central Vietnam, according to a report in The Vietnam Investment Review. The report quotes Vo Kim Cu, vice chairman of the People’s Committee of the central province of Ha Tinh, as saying that the province has agreed to provide 1,000 hectares of land for the proj-
Air Liquide Builds Gases Plant in Portugal Air Liquide says it will invest €50 million ($63.4 million) to build an industrial gases plant at Sines, Portugal to supply Repsol Polimeros’s and La Seda de Barcelona’s previously announced chemical projects. Air Liquide’s new plant will produce gaseous oxygen and nitrogen as well as liquefied gas at a rate of 400 m.t./day. It will supply nitrogen to Repsol Polimeros, which is expanding capacity, and to La Seda’s new 700,000-m.t./ year purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant. The projects are due for completion by 2010. Air Liquide’s new plant will also serve customers in Lisbon, southern Portugal, and southwest Spain. Separately, La Seda says it has secured a €320-million, 15-year project financing package from a consortium led by Caixa Geral (Lisbon) through its subsidiary Caixa Banco de Investimento. The loan will be used to partly finance the PTA plant, which is due onstream in the first quarter of 2010. It will be operated by La Seda’s subsidiary Artenius Sines.
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